CBC to be Replaced by Cheaper Incomplete Blood Count

NASHVILLE, TN – Looking to save a few dollars here and there in order to hire more hospital administrators, leadership at Nashville Medical Center (NMC) will replace the “overused and overpriced” complete blood count (CBC) with the much cheaper incomplete blood count (IBC).

“Look, it’s fact that health care providers spend too much on tests,” said NMC hospital administrator Steven McMoneybags. “The CBC is a perfect example. Do they really need all that information? That’s why we’re stepping in.” McMoneybags and other leadership feel that the IBC will be a true money saver since it will at best “provide a hemoglobin, white blood cell, or platelet count but certainly not all three.”

“If a patient is visibly bleeding, do you really need a CBC to figure out that the patient is losing blood?” asked McMoneybags. “That just seems silly. A waste of resources. We need to put that money to better use: hiring more administrators to administrate our administration.”

McMoneybags is working with different lab development companies, saying that an absolutely ideal IBC would just result as Yes or No: that they either have WBCs, RBCs, and platelets; or they don’t. In fact, he hopes that the ridiculously-incomplete blood count (RIBC) will be a reality in the near future and provide medical teams with absolutely zero useful information, thus saving a fortune.

In the upcoming months, McMoneybags hopes to replace both the basic metabolic panel (BMP) and comprehensive metabolic panel (CMP) with the useless metabolic panel (UMP), in which only one electrolyte will be tested: chloride. “Medical people are smart,” McMoneybags added. “I’m sure they can diagnose and treat based on a serum chloride level.”

McMoneybags hopes to restrict IBC and UMP orders to once an admission. “With lab tests being checked so infrequently, we can fire phlebotomists and lab techs and put the money towards new black suits and suitcases. It’s a win-win for everyone involved, don’t you think?”